Instapundit is right--it's odd that this criminal investigation into the Mississippi Judiciary is not getting more attention:

A web of connections exists between the judges, lawyers, politicians and investigators involved in a Mississippi judicial-corruption probe, raising questions about the fairness and thoroughness of the investigation and about possible conflicts of interest.

At issue is whether wealthy lawyers paid off loans for judges in exchange for favorable rulings. At stake is Mississippians' trust of the judiciary. The investigation is also a key battle in a nationwide tort-reform movement that often pits Democrats, who rely on trial lawyers for fund raising, against Republicans, who are under pressure from big business to limit jury awards in lawsuits.

Prosecutors and investigators have denied that politics has influenced the investigation. But The Sun Herald over the last year has uncovered a web of connections and flow of money among powerful people on all sides of the investigation....

There may be a vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court as early as the end of June, when the Suprme Court term ends. Lobbying has already begun:

Interest groups on the left and the right are beginning full-scale political campaigns — including fund-raising, advertising and major research — to prepare for what many expect to be a Supreme Court vacancy in the next several weeks. While none of the justices have said they plan to retire, any decision would traditionally be announced at the end of the court's term in late June.

Update: The New York Times has this graphic of the names and faces of those likely to be considered as Supreme Court nominees in the case of a retirement. [Via How Appealing]

Alabama Attorney General William Pryor's confirmation hearing is set for Wednesday.

Senators Patrick Leahy and Edward Kennedy are two Democratic senators planning aggressive questioning of Pryor. Leahy's spokesman said, "... the committee will also look at Pryor's role in "stripping" away congressional and fed eral authority to enforce constitutionally guaranteed protections." Kennedy's spokesman " indicated that the senator had questions for Pryor on his record on civil rights, abortion rights and his position as attorney general on treatment of prisoners when he unsuccessfully fought a lawsuit targeting the state's practice of handcuffing inmates to a hitching post as a means of disciplining them."

We strongly oppose Pryor's confirmation. Here are our reasons.

Neil Lewis of the New York Times writes a lengthy article on his review of the documents in the cross-burning case involving Bush judicial nominee Charles Pickering of Mississippi.

While we wrote a long post on this yesterday, Lewis's article contains some new information, so we recommend you read the whole thing.

The prosecutors, documents and interviews show, agonized over how to deal with a hostile federal judge.

Among other steps Judge Pickering took, he threatened to order a new trial. When prosecutors asked him on what basis he could do so, he replied, "Any basis you want."

When federal prosecutors from the same Jackson, Miss., office came before him in other unrelated cases, he hectored them, asking them repeatedly what their office was doing with regard to his request to reduce the sentence in the Swan case. Justice Department officials at the time said Judge Pickering was making it especially difficult for Mr. Lacy, a senior trial lawyer in the office who would have to appear many times before him.

In a sealed order, Judge Pickering ordered the prosecutors to take up the Swan case with Attorney General Janet Reno, an unusual demand they did not comply with and one he did not enforce.

Judge Pickering also telephoned Frank Hunger, a friend who was then a senior Justice Department official, to complain. His call may have violated the canons of judicial ethics, several legal experts say. Mr. Hunger said he listened but did not take any action on the complaint.

Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Harry Pregerson is bucking the trend in California Three-Strikes cases. He refuses to go along with life sentences for non-violent third-strike offenses. His view of "stare decisis" and his obligation to follow the dictates of the Supreme Court differs from that of some more conservative judges.

In good conscience, I cannot vote to go along with the sentence imposed in this case," Pregerson wrote in one typical dissent.

"I think the Three Strikes law should only be applied to a defendant whose criminal history, including his last offense, demonstrates that he needs to be taken off the streets because he poses a realistic threat to the health and safety of the community," Pregerson explained Tuesday. "There are cases where a long term in prison is justified and cases where it is not."

One appeal involved a 25-years-to-life sentence for stealing a $130 television from a Lake Elsinore Wal-Mart. Another involved a third-strike conviction for passing bad checks. In yet another, the defendant was convicted of receiving a stolen .22-caliber handgun.

....Pregerson is described by many as a compassionate liberal. He has been honored for his extensive work with veterans and the homeless. Pregerson said former Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren would always ask one question. "Very simple -- 'Is it fair?'" Pregerson said. "That's it. Our system has to be grounded in fairness."

We had the pleasure of meeting and speaking with Judge Pregerson at some length in Los Angeles last October at the swearing-in party for LA Police Chief William Bratton. The Judge is charming, vivacious and a great conversationalist. His conscience does him proud. [link via How Appealing]

The Washington Post reports that Bush judicial nominee Charles Pickering was so upset that he had to sentence a convicted cross-burner to 7 years that he tried to get the Justice Department to intervene. Reportedly, he threatened to overturn the jury's verdict even though he agreed it was legal. He demanded Janet Reno personally review the case. Of the cross-burner, he said, ""They're wanting seven years for a young man that got drunk."

Pickering is a former Republican Party state chairman, a onetime head of the Mississippi Baptist Convention, a critic of congressional efforts to mandate uniform federal sentences and an opponent of abortion and what he calls "extensions" of federal judicial power. From the bench, he has repeatedly assailed what he calls "frivolous" lawsuits, especially petitions by prisoners alleging unlawful incarceration and workers alleging employment discrimination.

....In the cross-burning case, Pickering's pressure led the Justice Department to take the extraordinary step of withdrawing one of the three criminal charges of which Swan had been convicted, which reduced his sentence from more than seven years to 27 months. Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee cited the judge's handling of the case as their principal reason for rejecting his nomination last year.

....Bush, several months after telling an audience in Jackson, Miss., that "the Senate did wrong by Judge Pickering," renominated him in January.

Sure, we are glad the Judge opposes mandatory minimum sentences. But given his overall record, that's a drop in the bucket and hardly enough. This is a lifetime position we are talking about--a seat on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals which includes the states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Like Miguel Estrada and Priscilla Owen, Charles Pickering has no place on the federal appeals court bench.

Trent Lott is behind a move to change the senate filibuster rules that will begin when Congress returns after the Memorial Day Weekend. His purpose? To secure the confirmation of controversial Bush judicial nominee Charles Pickering to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

A rules change would require a two-thirds vote in the Senate, an unlikely occurrence. GOP leaders also are considering trying to change the filibuster rule from the chair of the Senate, which would require only a simple majority vote to approve if Democrats challenged the ruling. That tactic is known as the "nuclear option." Democrats have warned of "fallout" if Republicans resort to that maneuver.

Pickering was rejected by Democrats on the first go-around because of his perceived racial insensitivities. Our prior coverage of Pickering is assembled here. According to this recent article in Salon, there is new evidence to support the claim of racial insensitivity--and in particular, to support a newer claim that Pickering was not truthful to the Committee during his 2002 confirmation hearing testimony.

Pickering told the Judiciary Committee that he engaged in efforts to better race relations in the 1960's. In 1964, he changed parties and became a Republican. He denied to the Committee that the motive for the switch was "to protest the national Democratic Party's support for civil rights and its attacks on segregation."

The new evidence to show Pickering was being disingenous, at best, and a liar, at worst, comes from newly discovered documents at the University of Mississippi Library, consisting of the files of his former law partner, avowed segregationist J. Carroll Gartin.

Gartin, who as lieutenant governor from 1956 to 1960 and again from 1964 until his sudden death in 1966 was a leading member of Mississippi's notoriously racist Sovereignty Commission.

According to Salon, :

Gartin's papers show conclusively that, contrary to McConnell's description, Pickering himself was one of those "white citizens and politicians who resisted integration and civil rights," not someone working to oppose such forces. Instead of "trying to establish better race relations" in the 1960s, Pickering worked to support segregation, attack civil rights advocates who sought to end Jim Crow, and back those who opposed national civil rights legislation, above all the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. Or, in the words of a public statement he signed in 1967, Pickering wanted to preserve "our southern way of life," and he bitterly blamed civil rights workers for stirring up "turmoil and racial hatred" in the South.

Received via e-mail from an accomplished Miami criminal defense attorney on the nomination of William Pryor to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals:

My concern is not that General Pryor lacks intellect. He is conservative in his political and personal views, but that alone is not a basis for opposing his nomination. What troubles me profoundly is his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on June 27, 2001, in opposition to the Innocence Protection Act.
In the course of his prepared remarks, General Pryor differentiated between judges and prosecutors on the one hand, and criminal defense attorneys on the other, in the following terms: "Judges are independent. For that matter, so are prosecutors whose ethical duty, in contrast with defense attorneys, is to pursue truth and justice." As a former prosecutor, I recall being taught by my then-boss Janet Reno (at the time, state attorney for Miami-Dade County) that it was a prosecutor's duty to prefer justice to conviction, but a defense attorney's duty to prefer acquittal to justice. It seems to me, however, that Ms. Reno's lesson was offered in a very different spirit than Pryor's testimony. Pryor's remarks impress me as those of someone who is appallingly naive and uninformed about the criminal justice process as it exists, and who proceeds upon his own preconceptions about "good guys and bad guys."

It gets worse. Pryor assured the Senate Judiciary Committee that innocent people simply aren't executed in America. This is such a startling statement, and one so demonstrably false, that it calls into question the judgment and character of the speaker. In support of this baseless allegation, Pryor quotes Prof. Paul Cassell of the University of Utah -- about the only person who would make such a supposititious remark.

The judicial nomination of Justice Department official Michael Chertoff was held up today as Democrats wanted to learn more about the ruckus over whistleblower Jesselyn Radack, who, while working in the Justice Department's Professional Responsibility Advisory Office, had issued an opinion that the FBI could not interrogate John Walker Lindh without an attorney present. She was later pressured to resign.

I'm very concerned about this Radack situation," Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said today after meeting with Mr. Chertoff. "It appears she was effectively fired for providing legal advice that the department didn't agree with."

We are finally headed home today after a full week in Manhattan attending graduation events and turning over our last spare dollar to Bed Bath and Beyond, Office Depot and Bloomingdales to furnish the graduate's new apartment--we'll be especially glad to return to high speed internet access so we can resume posting at our normal rate--in the meantime, check out Supreme Court Shuffle, with its comprehensive speculation on likely Supreme Court Justice retirees and replacements.

On the injustice front, Tennessee is scheduled to execute Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman on June 18, notwithstanding the consensus of opinion that he was denied effective assistance of counsel. Law Professor William McClain eloquently writes:

The Minneapolis Star Tribune has more on the Feeney Amendment and its restrictive effect on judges' sentencing discretion.

Some Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are taking a dim view of Feeney's idea. Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., said the law will result in "robot-like conformity" in sentencing, adding that it doesn't recognize that circumstances can vary in individual cases.

ABA Preident Alfred Carlton, who wrote a strong protest letter against the bill before it passed (as a last minute add-on to the Amber child alert bill,) has been in Washington recently to try and gather support for its repeal. Carlton thinks the bill was the result of the strong negative reaction to Congress's subpoena of Minnesota federal Judge James Rosenbaum's sentencing records in drug cases.

"It came out of nowhere," he said. "I think it was a result of the powers-that-be recognizing that the subpoena route wasn't going to be very fruitful. . . . Better to just go ahead and legislate -- and that's what they did."

The law also requires judges to give specific written reasons when they stray from the guidelines. Critics fear that judges will be intimidated and less likely to impose lenient sentences. "Every time you depart from the guidelines, the attorney general will be notified. Talk about a blacklist for judges," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

For more information on the Feeney Amendment, go here. For why the unprecedented subpoena of Judge Rosenbaum's sentencing records is a bad idea, go here.

Twelve faculty members and 50 law students to date have signed a petition protesting the selection of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as the commencement speaker at the University of Georgia law school.

The protest is over Thomas' role in the Bush v. Gore 2000 election decision, and the speaker selection process. The leader of the protest is law professor Donald Wilkes, who says he will give a speech on another part of the campus at the same time on the need to protect civil liberties.

Wilkes described the number of people who've signed the anti-Thomas petition as "roughly one-third of the law school faculty and includes the only tenured black professor at the law school.

"The decision to invite Justice Thomas is appalling, unwise and perverse - the embodiment of bad judgment," Wilkes told CNSNews.com.

The petition argued the selection process was "under inclusive, clandestine and divisive," and claimed the decision to have Thomas deliver commencement remarks was "divisive and disrespectful to a substantial number of students and their families."

[link via Instapundit]